Wix or WordPress? Find out which is the most suitable for creating websites and the characteristics of each tool.
Wix or WordPress, this question plagues many people, as many issues are involved that make this choice extremely complicated for a less experienced user.
Both tools are great for anyone looking to create a website. Despite this, they have very different characteristics that make them suitable only for a specific profile.
To a user who is just discovering these tools, it might seem that they are very similar. However, in practice, we can see how they are tools with different purposes.
In this article, we will explain, in an extremely didactic way, which is the best platform for creating your page.
Wix or WordPress: Comparison Summary
Wix is a website creation tool that works right in the browser, without the need to install software or make complex configurations.
It is used by about 1% of websites on the internet. And its main feature is to allow the creation of websites without having to understand anything about technology or website creation.
Technically speaking, Wix is a SaaS tool (software as a service), so it is self-hosted and does not require any other service such as website hosting.
In the case of WordPress, things change a bit. There are two versions of WordPress, the best known is WordPress.org, which releases the source code for you to install WordPress on your preferred hosting site.
This most popular version is used by about 43% of all websites on the internet. The other version is WordPress.com, but this is basically a service that offers self-hosted WordPress (much like Wix).
It is important to point out that it makes no sense to use WordPress.com because it greatly limits the options for using WP. And if you were to have a limited tool, you wouldn’t turn to WordPress.
For this reason, the version of WordPress that requires website hosting – WordPress.org – is more popular and will be the one we are going to talk about here in this comparison.
WordPress was initially conceived to be a blog manager, but over time it gained new features until it became the most popular CMS on the planet.
Currently, WordPress is a versatile and very complete content manager (CMS) that allows you to create websites, forums, virtual stores, and much more. All this with the possibility of adding new features by developing your own theme or plugin.
| RESOURCE | WORDPRESS | WIX |
|---|---|---|
| Installation | Some WordPress hosting services provide the CMS pre-installed, but you usually have to follow a few steps to complete the WordPress installation with a few clicks. | Wix doesn’t need to be installed, you just choose how you want to create the site and follow the instructions to use Wix right in your browser. |
| Ease of Use | WordPress is very easy to use, it is a very intuitive and easy-to-use CMS. However, it loses to Wix in this regard for being more complete and having more complex tools. | Everything is as simple as possible in Wix. The downside is that some tools may be too limited or simply not exist in Wix. |
| Website Creation | Creating a website in WordPress is very easy, just install a plugin like Elementor and you’ll have many more customization options and a “drag and drop” style editor. | Creating a website in Wix is even simpler because the options are limited and everything is based on creating a website from a ready-made template. But it is also possible to create a website from scratch. |
| Management | Here comes the biggest difference between them, managing a WordPress site can be much more difficult than a site created with Wix. In WordPress, you have to worry about updates, security, maintenance, etc. | On Wix, you don’t have to worry about anything. As it is a SaaS platform you do not have access to source code or advanced settings. Therefore, who takes care of everything for you is the company that owns Wix. |
| Migration | You can take your WordPress site anywhere. From the cheapest hosting to the complex Amazon cloud, they are ready to receive your WordPress site. | The site made with Wix cannot leave Wix. You are restricted to the rules and conditions of the company that owns the tool. If you want to leave the company, you need to start a website from scratch somewhere else. |
| Functionalities | WordPress probably already offers everything you need, for free. It has a plethora of tools and features that can be added to your site by installing plugins. | Wix offers a limited range of generally simple tools. Even the most expensive plans are very limited, especially in terms of SEO and website optimization. |
| Popularity | It is used by over 40% of all websites on the internet. | It is used by about 1% of websites that are on the internet.
|
| Price | WordPress.org is free. However, you need to purchase a website hosting service that costs $2.95 – $49.95 per month. It is the website hosting that stores WordPress.org and makes your website online. | Wix has a free version that is quite limited, and plans start at for personal use $16 /month per month. |
Knowing Each of Them
Here’s some important information about these tools you need to know before deciding which one to create a website.
Wix
Wix is a website creation platform founded in 2006. In other words, it has been in the market for over 15 years and millions of websites have been developed through it.
The great advantage of Wix is the ease of creating pages, as it has hundreds of plugins, features, and ready-made templates.
In it, there are several pre-configured sites (called templates, themes, or templates), where you can change the information and publish it on your site.
Wix works like this:
- Create a free or paid account.
- Choose your website template.
- Enter your information.
- Publish the website.
And compared to WordPress, it’s a simpler and somewhat limited platform because of the way it works.
However, this little limitation doesn’t mean that Wix is weak or lacking in features.
On the contrary, many prefer it for being “straight to the point”. Wix lets you create a website without having to deal with technology or complex setup.
Everything is done in a simple and objective way, for this reason, Wix is suitable for creating fast websites when the user does not have much knowledge of website creation.
WordPress
WordPress is a powerful open-source CMS released in 2003 and used by over 60 million websites.
A CMS is, in short, an installable system to manage websites and content on the internet. That is, it is the “engine” behind the site.
The advantage of WordPress is the fact that it is extremely robust and has an infinity (almost in the literal sense) of plugins.
In other words…
If you want a plugin for anything like…
- Create a forum;
- Add a contact form;
- SEO features;
- Sale of products by virtual store;
- or even speed up website loading.
…it certainly exists in WordPress.
After all, it is made up of a huge community of users creating new plugins and themes daily. And it is thanks to this community that WordPress continues to grow.
How WordPress works:
- Hire a hosting service.
- Install WordPress.
- Configure the website.
- Put the website online.
Compared to Wix, putting a website on the internet with WordPress is a bit more difficult task. But it’s not a seven-headed beast. Many hosting companies offer WordPress installation in just a few clicks.
Wix or WordPress: Which Platform is Easier to Use?
In this category, Wix is the winner. It’s very easy to create a website with Wix. And there’s no additional maintenance or worry to keep the site up and running.
Unlike WordPress which requires some technical knowledge to
- Hire hosting;
- Create database;
- Install WordPress;
- Choose theme;
- Install plugins;
- Configure WordPress …
Wix is extremely simple and easy to use.
However, if you dedicate yourself to knowing more about WordPress, you will see that things are not so difficult, but for a lay user, it can seem quite complex at first glance.
Anyone, with a few clicks, can now view your page and change the information contained therein.
Of course, that doesn’t mean WordPress is unusable.
Most hosts, such as Yogeta, have automatic installers for WordPress that make it a lot easier to build your website.
In addition to the fact that often a video on Youtube or the hosting company’s own support will solve this in seconds for you.
Wix or WordPress: Which is the cheapest website-building platform?
When it comes to values, the choice between Wix or WordPress depends on which option you choose from each platform. WordPress plans could go as low as $4 while as Wix plan starts at 16$ for personal use.
Which has the best performance? Wix or WordPress?
This question is difficult to answer because both platforms run on their own engines and codebases.
What’s more, the performance of both varies depending on how you’ve configured the site.
For example, a page might be heavier on WordPress but load faster due to installing a caching plugin or CDN.
So how to get a fair result between the two?
It’s quite simple.
Both are fast, but Wix has the limitation of not allowing changes to the server or default loading speed (apart from the normal platform acceleration).
Already WordPress, through its plugins or through a much more powerful hosting (if you prefer) can reach an absurd performance.
WordPress even allows you to hire a dedicated server on Amazon.
Does it mean that Wix is slow?
Not.
But it does mean that it has an optimization limit.
Important: If your site is not unusual, this “limitation” by Wix will not make any apparent difference in the loading of your site pages, rest assured.
But is it easy to configure WordPress to be fast?
Yes and no.
Some plugins like WP Super Cache are easy to use and have simple optimization options.
But deeper changes like using a CDN require technical expertise.
What is the Most Secure Platform?
Both platforms are pretty safe, but they have caveats.
These caveats, at first, do not weigh so much in the balance, since you will hardly have problems with the security of your site.
Why Wix is Secure
Because it is a Self Hosted application and all security is monitored by the company that created the tool.
What does that mean?
It means that it is a platform completely made and tested by a private company (Wix itself) where your own website is hosted on it.
As Wix offers its own hosting, there are none of the most common faults found in poorly configured services.
Furthermore, as thousands of websites are using Wix services, there is extreme concern about the security of each of them.
Since no one knows what Wix’s source code looks like, hackers are unlikely to know how to start an attack or a specific strategy to steal data.
Not to mention that the data on Wix servers is encrypted.
This ensures that not even company employees have access to your information.
Why WordPress is Secure?
WordPress is safe because it is an open-source system.
An open-source system is like a program in that everyone can see its source code and understand how it is made.
And the WordPress community itself suggests very frequent changes to make it more secure.
In other words… there are hundreds or thousands of programmers working daily to make WordPress increasingly secure and robust.
In addition, WordPress has several specific plugins to shield your site from attacks.
These plugins:
- Limit login attempts;
- Install Firewalls;
- Check for viruses;
- Ban suspicious IPs;
- Expel malicious robots;
- They point out hosting security flaws;
- Block common paths used by crackers.
These WordPress applications help protect your website, but for that, it is necessary to hire secure hosting that matches the needs of your page.
Who Wins the Safest Platform Title?
Wordpress!
The difference between them is, basically, that WordPress allows the installation of applications that guarantee more security (even).
But there is no recent news of data leakage or issues related to these two platforms.
Which platform allows for more customization? Wix or WordPress?
Both are very good in this regard, but WordPress takes the lead when it comes to styling your site.
That’s because, in addition to having many themes available, you have tools, such as Elementor, capable of copying and pasting pre-made elements in a matter of seconds.
All of this results in immense personalization power.
In contrast, what Wix “loses” in customization, it gains in ease.
After all, for most users, there’s no point in having as much customization power as WordPress, if that customization is difficult.
And that’s where Wix shows its relevance.
You can build different types of websites and use the most varied elements to build your page on Wix (at an interesting speed).
And unlike WordPress, on Wix, all this customization is very easy to do.
Who wins then?
It depends on your need.
If you’d like to be able to tinker with every micro-element and change everything that’s available, WordPress is right for you.
However, if you don’t want such extreme customizations and prefer to opt for something much easier, Wix will please you.
Wix or WordPress: The Best Platform to have an Online Store
At this stage of the article, you may have already noticed a pattern when comparing Wix and WordPress, right?
WordPress is like a full-featured ship, but difficult to use beyond common usage.
Wix, on the other hand, is like a car, which delivers what it promises, but does not have all the possibilities of WordPress.
When it comes to virtual stores, this analogy is reinforced even more.
Wix’s eCommerce is simple, and organized, and allows you to control your sales well.
As for WordPress, you have Woocommerce, the most powerful, customizable, and beloved plugin when it comes to creating an online store.
Self-proclaimed the world’s most popular open source e-commerce solution, it lets you:
- Optimize the SEO of each page to the maximum;
- Handle inventory, downloadable products, and promotions;
- Various means of payment.
And How Much Does it Cost?
Anything. Creating an online store on WordPress is free.
Really. It doesn’t cost a penny.
Woocommerce’s free plan is pretty complete.
In addition, it makes it possible to use other WordPress plugins together.
For example…
Do you want to calculate the delivery value by zip code via API?
Want to make products appear automatically as the user scrolls down?
Do you want to generate extremely complete reports that will help you deal with your business?
Woo commerce allows you to install plugins to take advantage of all this.
Which Option to Choose for Your eCommerce
If you want the ease of management and payment methods, the ideal is to opt for Wix.
Their system is simpler and, for those who are starting out, this simplicity can be the difference between the virtual store having a good organization or not.
However, if you want “firepower”, dealing with a large number of products, sending emails, and almost infinite plugins, among other relevant functions, the ideal is to opt for WordPress.
In general, smaller stores use Wix and larger stores use WordPress, with the exceptions.
What is the Best Platform for SEO? Wix or WordPress?
Before we get into this item, it is necessary to explain exactly what SEO is.
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, which means: “Optimization for Search Engines”.
In much simpler language, it is the ability to make your pages appear in Google searches.
A site with good SEO appears more in the top positions of search results on Google. Therefore, it will have more visitors and consequently more sales.
A site with bad SEO does not appear in searches, has few visitors, and unfortunately makes few sales.
Thinking about it, the following question remains: Of these two platforms, Wix or WordPress, which one has the best SEO?
What SEO Optimization Looks Like at Wix
At Wix, you have the possibility to improve your site’s SEO through the titles and descriptions of each page.
In addition to being able to easily add alt tags to your images and customize the URLs in the most optimized way.
Wix also offers a sitemap and lets you connect to essential SEO apps like Google Search Console and Google Analytics (on paid plans).
In short, it’s a simple optimization that even allows you to change a few things, but nothing relevant when it comes to search engines, something that leaves Wix well behind WordPress in this regard.
It is also important to note that Wix has already been involved in controversies about the supposed enmity it has with SEO.
The fact is that in 2015, due to a Google update, websites made by Wix suffered a sharp drop in search results.
Everything indicates that this lack of optimization has already been resolved, but to this day many argue whether Wix SEO is really efficient.
And the answer is yes, Wix offers all the basic SEO tools your site needs to appear on the first page of Google.
How is SEO Optimization in WordPress?
With WordPress, things change a little bit.
You have the power to change just about everything, from friendly URLs, to specific metadata, thus optimizing every single detail of your site.
This guarantees more visits, more customers, and more sales, as long as you know what you are doing, of course.
With the Yoast SEO plugin, one of the most used, you can:
- Check the health of each page;
- Optimize blog articles to the extreme to get as many visits as possible;
- Set content thumbnail;
- Determine structural content;
- Choose appearance in search results;
- Integrate with several other tools;
- And much more.
All these changes are wonderful, aren’t they?
It depends.
If you know exactly how to optimize each of these items to the fullest, then yes.
If you don’t know, Wix is sure to offer you more results.
A wrong configuration in WordPress can harm SEO and make you lose views and customers.
Which Option is the Best of all for SEO?
If you know little or nothing about SEO, go with Wix. It allows few changes, but you are in control and know what you are doing.
If you understand SEO, WordPress is much better. In it, the options are varied and for sure the optimization will be better.
And if you don’t understand, but want to have the results that WordPress allows, there are professionals and companies specializing in SEO.
They do all the site setup for you.
It is an important option, especially when it comes to blogs or online stores.
Which Supports Better: WordPress or Wix?
Problems happen.
It may be that your website is working perfectly one day, but the next it has an error or even “down”.
What to do?
Activate support, of course.
But which support would answer you first?
What would be the most efficient support?
Wix or WordPress Support?
How Wix support works
Wix offers a well-equipped help and support center with a team available via email, chat, and phone.
Chat services are provided 24 hours a day, every day of the week, essential in solving problems that occur in unusual situations.
If that wasn’t enough to put your mind at ease, the platform still has a series of tutorials and help manuals that are extremely well explained.
How does WordPress support work?
As was clear at the beginning of this article, there are two versions of WordPress.
WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
WordPress.com has a support and service page equivalent to Wix when it comes to demand via chat or email.
And WordPress.org is not directly supported as it is an open-source system.
Does that mean you won’t get any support?
No…
You can still get help from your website hosting company. For this reason, it is important to choose the best website hosting.
As demands related to WordPress are common, the company that hosts your website can help in most situations.
And WordPress itself has forums with the most varied themes to help new users.
Who is the Winner of this Category?
Wix and WordPress.
Both offer support via chat, which is essential for solving problems, from the simplest to the most complex.
WordPress.org loses this fight for not having direct support, even though it can be offered by the hosting company.
Which Platform has the Best Plugins? Wix or WordPress
Without a doubt, WordPress is by far the best in this category.
There are plugins for absolutely everything in WordPress.
If you want to display specific popups, create slides or even turn your site into a social network, there are plugins for that.
Most are free, but there are paid ones (with features that are really worth investing in).
Furthermore, because WordPress is an open-source community, new plugins and updates appear every day making them safe and fail-safe.
Wix also has many plugins or applications as the platform calls them.
All are available on the Wix App Market and are mostly free and divided into categories:
- Marketing;
- Online sales;
- Services and events;
- Media and content;
- Design elements;
- Communication.
The advantage of Wix plugins is that they are Drag and Drop. That is, they are installed just by dragging and dropping the plugins in the site editor.
Unlike WordPress, where each plugin is installed as if it were a program within the system that manages your pages.
Which platform gives you more control over your data: Wix or WordPress?
Let’s be honest, at first, having immediate and simplified access to your data doesn’t seem to be essential for a website.
Because let’s face it…
You don’t create a website thinking about the problems it may have.
However, it is something that needs to be thought about as soon as possible.
What do I mean by “immediate and simplified access”?
Following…
Can you take an offline backup of your website?
Can you easily migrate content from one server to another?
Is your data only available to you?
How Does Your Data Work on Wix?
Everything you do on Wix is on Wix’s own servers.
This means that your data depends on their platform to be read and displayed correctly, which prevents you from having an offline backup or easily migrating your content from one server to another.
What’s the problem with that?
It’s just that once you’re on Wix, your site will only work on Wix.
There are even other methods that make it possible to migrate Wix content via RSS to another platform, but it will never be identical to the original site, thus generating much more headaches in the future.
To exit Wix just by creating a new site from scratch, on a new platform.
How Your Data Works in WordPress
In WordPress, your data is completely yours.
You can easily migrate them and even have an offline (and up-to-date) copy of your site.
The WordPress database generally uses MySQL, which is already a database platform used by other CMSs and other online systems.
This feature helps you a lot when migrating your site from one server to another.
Furthermore, most of these migrations are done for free by hosting companies.
Bottom Line: is it better to choose Wix or WordPress?
The answer is a big “depends on your needs”.
But not to let you down, let’s explore some cases, so you can evaluate which option is best for you.
1st case: simple website, just to promote your business -> Wix
For a simple website where you just want to have a digital presence, Wix is the best option.
As their tools are easy and website creation is uncomplicated by the drag-and-drop editor, you will have no difficulties and can have the website ready in 1 or 2 days.
WordPress is now recommended if you intend to greatly expand this simple website and make it into a blog or webshop in the future.
2nd case: blog -> WordPress
For a blog, WordPress would be ideal because it allows for better SEO optimization.
After all, it’s no use writing articles, and striving to update the blog frequently, if your posts don’t appear on Google, right?
Wix even has the ability to manage a blog, but the absence of more active SEO optimization can hurt you.
3rd case: virtual store -> Wix or WordPress
For online stores both options are ideal, but you will have to choose between power and simplicity.
The Wix online store is simpler.
This simplicity can help you a lot when managing your company.
If it’s your first online store, don’t be afraid to go with Wix.
However, with WordPress you have a lot more power, whether it’s in terms of reports or the plugins available that greatly enhance your store.
4th case: landing page and sales pages -> Wix
For landing pages (those famous capture pages) or sales pages, Wix comes out as the winner.
Because, as expected, the drag-and-drop editor helps a lot to assemble the structure of the page as you view it.
WordPress has plugins like Elementor that allow you to do something similar, but the complexity of having to install WordPress can end up making the page creation process take longer than it should.
However, if your sales page is going to have some special functionality or integration with other tools, such as CRM, the ideal is to use WordPress.
Conclusion – To recap: Wix or WordPress, which is the best website-building platform?
In this article, you saw, in a very detailed way, the pros and cons of using Wix or WordPress.
It was clear that Wix is extremely simple and WordPress is pretty powerful. And choosing between each one depends exclusively on your need.
If it’s your first website or digital project, start with Wix, test the platform and see how it works internally.
But don’t forget that you can’t leave Wix with the site, you can only enjoy the text content if you migrate to another platform.
If it is a project with a great vision of the future, go to WordPress, it will surely meet your needs and give you the “firepower” you need.
In our opinion after the details, you can go with WordPress & acquire the best hosting service on Yogeta.
